August 27, 2018 at 1:04 p.m.
Hodag soccer splits games at home invite
Hodag soccer splits games at home invite
Rhinelander squandered a second-half lead as it fell to Iron Mountain, Mich. 2-1 in the first game of the day, but responded with a second-half barrage to defeat Ironwood, Mich. 9-0 in the nightcap at the Hanson Lake Soccer Complex.
Rhinelander is playing with basically a new defensive unit this fall, and is looking for a new top scoring threat with last year's conference player of the year Jonus Sabani not going out for the team this season. To those ends, coach Dan Millot said his side is still a work in progress.
"We had a lot of work to do from a positioning standpoint, getting players comfortable in the three different formations that we're trying to play," he said. "We're going to narrow that down and basically work on two systems of play."
Six different players scored for Rhinelander on the day - with Matthew Von Oepen, Hugh Wiese and Anthony Kowalski recording multiple tallies in the two matches. Millot said the team will have to be diverse in its attack as it tries to replace Sabani, who accounted for nearly half of the team's scoring a season ago.
"We need to make sure that (other teams) understand that we're going to have people coming at you from all different angles," he said. "We don't have the one star. We have to have people that are willing to step up and play. The other message to the team was we have a few players right now who are playing for themselves and not for the team. I told them flat out that needs to stop and the team needs to come first above all else and we'll see how far that goes."
Iron Mountain 2, Rhinelander 1
Fatigue and a lack of depth, more than anything else, doomed Rhinelander in its opening match against Iron Mountain.
With the team's junior varsity playing simultaneously on an adjacent field, the Hodags were left with only one sub for the match against the Mountaineers. That appeared to cost Rhinelander down the stretch.
Andrew Person tied the match on a rebound goal for Iron Mountain in the 67th minute and Ryan Hakamaki scored the game-winner on another rebound in the 82nd. Both goals were a matter of fatigue, Millot said.
"We definitely were gassed in the game," he said. "Part of it was it was more our mistakes. Good teams are going to capitalize on your mistakes and Iron Mountain did that this morning. They capitalized on the mistakes that we made. We just didn't clear the balls when we should have cleared the balls. In any other game, if those situations would have happened in the first half, they probably wouldn't have scored. But the fact that we were gassed and not paying attention, those mistakes kind of bit us."
Rhinelander went ahead 1-0 in the 27th minute when Kowalski, a senior in only his second season of high school soccer, dispossessed an Iron Mountain defender roughly 30 yards from goal, dribbled into the box and beat Mountaineer keeper Caleb Bryant on a breakaway.
"The kid is relentless," Millot said. "When he's on the field he's like a shark in water that smells blood. That's the ball to him and he'll get after it. What impressed me most about that (goal) is that he did dispossess the defender. He stayed calm and basically gave the ball a little toe-poke past the keeper, which was the result of hustle and hard work."
Rhinelander outshot Iron Mountain 23-12 in the match, and had a couple of good looks to double the lead early in the second half on shots by Wiese that were knocked away by Bryant. Senior keeper Josh Randolph made nine saves in defeat for the Hodags.
Rhinelander 9, Ironwood 0
The Hodags took advantage when the Red Devils put their reserves in late in the afternoon match. Rhinelander scored seven times after Ironwood made wholesale changes in the 65th minute and cruised to the win.
The Hodags controlled play throughout the match, but were only ahead 2-0 at the time of swap. Von Oepen and Wiese both scored less than a minute later and the rout was on after that.
"When they put their subs in, we took advantage of the inexperience of that team," Millot said. "We switched players in positions, tried to possess the ball a little bit more. Fundamentally, our shots that we scored were opportunistic. Many of them were just well-placed shots."
Despite outshooting the Red Devils 23-4 in the opening half, Von Oepen's tally in the 30th minute was the only goal the Hodags had for their efforts. Von Oepen finished a strong shot to the upper lefthand portion of the goal off a cross into the box by Russell Benoy.
Wiese made it 2-0 with a bit of fortune in the 49th minute as his shot from the top of the penalty area went through the keeper's hands, glanced off the inside of the left goalpost and trickled across the goal line.
Rhinelander found the net five more times in the final 16 minutes of the match. Kowalski scored in the 77th minute, Freddy Wisner scored on a no-look flick in the 81st minute, Martin Hoger scored in the 82nd minute, Hunter Hicks scored in the 85th minute and Von Oepen completed a hat trick in the 87th minute.
Randolph was called upon to make four saves in the shutout.
Rhinelander (1-1-0, 0-0-0 Great Northern) opens conference play against Antigo this evening at Mike Webster Stadium.
Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].
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